Jesus: Tale of the Dreadful Bio-Monster

JESUS: Kyoufu no Bio Monster

For those who want a more structured approach to Jesus, as well as a brief description of how I went about translating it, check here and here. This page is largely a relic of my old website and has not changed very much since I first posted it nearly two years ago – it is poorly laid out and, I admit, not very well-written and the two links above are no doubt better resources for the curious.

JESUS is a game I found while looking through one of the game stores near KIT in Kanazawa, Japan. I’ll admit, I was first taken in by the title, but soon enough, I noticed that not only did the game have nothing to do with the Jesus I was thinking of, it looked like a space anime game of some sort. Convinced that the game could not be that bad, I made the purchase.

I might have been happier, I suppose, if the game were not a merger of two game genres I don’t particularly enjoy – text-adventure and survival horror, but playing through the game I was impressed by the graphics – even though nearly everything consisted of stills, the art style and production are quite good. Koichi Sugiyama, the now-more-famous composer for Enix, was also involved in the creation of the game, and it shows in the excellent music (apparently there is a soundtrack for this game, which I am sad to say I cannot find). Well-written and well-drawn, this game is excellent.

Since the game is entirely written in Hiragana and Katakana, the two easiest character sets of Japanese to remember, I found understanding the game to be an easy enough chore. Eventually, I thought, I could translate this game.

Well, eventually came and went (in around 3 weeks at the end of Winter Quarter ’06), and I now have a game script to show for it. For now, I’ve submitted the Game Script to GameFAQs and it is posted here as well. I have also finished up a patch to translate the game (see “Jesus Patch”).

The overall plot of the game is as follows:
In 2061, there has as yet been no contact with extraterrestrial lifeforms. Recently, however, some sort of life had been detected in Halley’s Comet – which is oddly headed straight for Earth’s solar system. The nations of Earth (or at least the United States, Japan, Italy, France, Germany, China, Brazil, and the Soviet Union) quickly band together to form an elite group of astronauts to investigate. They are to launch in two separate ships from the skylab “Jesus” and take a sample from the comet, analyze it, and the nations will decide what to do from there. On the same day that the first ship, the appropriately named “Comet”, harvests gas from the comet, it stops responding. The captain of the second ship sends you to investigate. The story that follows is one that is somewhat predictable, but it arrives at that point via so many appropriately-done twists and turns that the player will always keep guessing. Some of the scenes in the game are so well-done they have to be seen (and heard) in order to have the full effect.

So, then, let’s take a look at some nifty pictures from the game, shall we?

Portraits of the characters in the game, along with character descriptions from the instruction book:

Musou Hayao (Male, Japan, 18)
(Kanji mean Warrior, Hemp(?), Quick, and Hero/Masculine)
Hayao became such a shooting game fanatic that he did not want to see any aircraft shot down and entered the “Galaxy Warriors” Training Academy for that reason alone. Although his reason for entering school was so simple, he displayed top-class talent and his practical record at school was spotless (his actual course grades, however, were not so great). Some time after Hayao entered school, Milakov was a special lecturer. He took a liking to Hayao’s genius and recommended him for the mission. Hayao is somewhat thoughtless and has a weakness for young women.

Helene Shulman (Female, France, 17)
Helene began playing the piano at the age of four, and was overall champion of the worldwide junior piano contest at the age of ten. While studying music theory on her own, she also demonstrated great talent in mathematics and at 14 entered Sorbonne University (founded 2001). While on a field trip to the Jesus space station, she happened to meet Bellini, which brought about her inclusion on board the “Comet”. Apart from her skills at math and the piano, she is an ordinary teenage girl. She is also Hayao’s girlfriend.

Nahas Ali (Male, Egypt, 48)
After graduating at the top of his class at Harvard, he joined the United Nations Space Department and became the commander of the Jesus Space Station. He is world famous for his skills as a mediator and his willingness to offer assistance to any on board the station. He is a gentle person as well as a precise leader whom all his subordinates trust wholeheartedly.

FOJY (Robot, made in Japan)
Helene’s “Mascot-Robot” is actually also a high-powered, highly intelligent robot that can do data-processing. Normally quite timid, but how he (??) will fare in an emergency remains to be seen.
FOJY is ENIX shifted one character up the alphabet.

Other Members of Ship 1

Wilhelm Heiler (Male, Germany, 33)
Went to Fünbolt University to study Celestial Mechanics, after which the SAL (Space and Aviation League) hired him as a pilot. Since the mission to investigate Halley’s comet would involve diving into the tail, a truly dangerous task, his skill and technique would be necessary, so he was hired on as the captain of the Comet.

André Bellini (Male, Italy, 29)
While studying abroad in France, he came across the field of Computer Science and switched his major from Computer Theory. Ordinarily he is a prudent and cautious person; his one spur-of-the-moment decision came as the group for the mission was being formed. He had met the genius undergraduate student Helene, who was studying abroad, and recommended her for the mission.
Garcia Barkas (Male, Brazil, 24)
In order to study Interstellar Materials Science in detail, he studied abroad in the United States. To pay the cost of classes, he worked part-time at a hamburger café. He was chosen for the Halley-61 Mission as a regular public applicant, without knowing himself how he managed to apply. He has such a cheerful personality that anyone can like him.

Other Members of Ship 2

Ivan Milakov (Male, Soviet Union, 31)
Around the age of 10, he was affected by the resulting radioactivity from a nearby nuclear power plant accident. This event was predicted to shorten his life considerably. Resigning himself to his short life, he volunteered for the Galaxy Warriors. However, he rose above his initial depression to become more aggressive, and matured into a calm yet brave warrior. Captain of the Corona.

Zhu Fanghua (Female, China, 27) (Kanji mean: “Scarlet Flower fragrance”)
Aiming for a blend of both Eastern and Western medical methods, she studied abroad at a Japanese medical school. Afterwards, she was the medical specialist for the China Space Research Institute, and became the Sub-Captain of the Corona. Because of her experience studying there, she thinks very highly of Japan. A smart and beautiful woman.
Roger Curzon (Male, America, 21)
Growing up near a NASA base, he yearned to enter space since he was young. After studying Xenobiology at Harvard University, found employment at NASA and, after an earnest petition, was appointed by the commander to be a member of the 2nd ship of the mission, the “Corona”. A hot-blooded man who follows his own aspirations.

Thanks to Masadori for some help with name corrections, and to NeoShinka for reminding me I hadn’t posted them yet…

RealRobo’s web site:Jesus Section
This web site not only has a walkthrough for each section with screenshots, but a listing of cast far superior to mine. I’m guessing the extra information is out of the manual(s) of the games.

RetroPC.net – Jesus
This site has a few screenshots of the PC-FX / PC-8801 version of Jesus, which looks much nicer.

Yet another review of Jesus
This review has a bit more information about the game, and is a retrospective written in 2002 praising the game as proof that amount of bits doesn’t mean everything, and that Dragon Quest isn’t Enix’s only good work.

[…] clearly written with a younger audience in mind, but your best bet is to use the fan translation by Niahak (thanks so much for the manual translations!). It was recently retranslated with a more […]